"Sir,—I am favoured with your's of the 26th of February, and cannot but be pleased to find myself, as a writer, so high in your esteem. The curiosity you express, with regard to the particulars of my life and the variety of situations in which I may have been, cannot be gratified within the compass of a letter. Besides, there are some particulars of my life which it would ill become me to relate. The only similitude between the circumstances of my own fortune and those I have attributed to Roderick Random consists in my being born of a reputable family in Scotland, in my being bred a surgeon, and having served as a surgeon's mate on board a man-of-war during the expedition to Carthagena. The low situations in which I have exhibited Roderick I never experienced in my own person. I married very young, a native of Jamaica, a young lady well known and universally respected under the name of Miss Nancy Lassells, and by her I enjoy a comfortable, tho' moderate estate in that island. I practised surgery in London, after having improved myself by travelling in France and other foreign countries, till the year 1749, when I took my degree of Doctor in Medicine, and have lived ever since in Chelsea (I hope) with credit and reputation.
"No man knows better than Mr. Rivington what time I employed in writing the four first volumes of the History of England; and, indeed, the short period in which that work was finished appears almost incredible to myself, when I recollect that I turned over and consulted above three hundred volumes in the course of my labour. Mr. Rivington likewise knows that I spent the best part of a year in revising, correcting, and improving the quarto edition; which is now going to press, and will be continued in the same size to the late Peace. Whatever reputation I may have got by this work has been dearly purchased by the loss of health, which I am of opinion I shall never retrieve. I am now going to the South of France, in order to try the effects of that climate; and very probably I shall never return. I am much obliged to you for the hope you express that I have obtained some provision from his Majesty; but the truth is, I have neither pension nor place, nor am I of that disposition which can stoop to solicit either. I have always piqued myself upon my Independancy, and I trust in God I shall preserve it to my dying day.
"Exclusive of some small detached performances that have been published occasionally in papers and magazines, the following is a genuine list of my productions. Roderick Random. The Regicide, a Tragedy. A translation of Gil Blas. A translation of Don Quixotte. An Essay upon the external use of water. Peregrine Pickle. Ferdinand Count Fathom. Great part of the Critical Review. A very small part of a Compendium of Voyages. The complete History of England, and Continuation. A small part of the Modern Universal History. Some pieces in the British Magazine, comprehending the whole of Sir Launcelot Greaves. A small part of the translation of Voltaire's Works, including all the notes, historical and critical, to be found in that translation.
"I am much mortified to find it is believed in America that I have lent my name to Booksellers: that is a species of prostitution of which I am altogether incapable. I had engaged with Mr. Rivington, and made some progress in a work exhibiting the present state of the world; which work I shall finish, if I recover my health. If you should see Mr. Rivington, please give my kindest compliments to him. Tell him I wish him all manner of happiness, tho' I have little to expect for my own share; having lost my only child, a fine girl of fifteen, whose death has overwhelmed myself and my wife with unutterable sorrow.
"I have now complied with your request, and beg, in my turn, you will commend me to all my friends in America. I have endeavoured more than once to do the Colonies some service; and am, Sir, your very humble servant,
"Ts. SMOLLETT.
"London, May 8, 1763."
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The foregoing letter, though by no means confidential, must possess considerable value to any future biographer of the writer. It very clearly shows the light in which Smollett was willing to be viewed by the public. It explains the share he took in more than one literary enterprise, and establishes his paternity of the translation of "Gil Blas," which has been questioned by Scott and ignored by other critics. The travels in France, which, according to the letter, could not have been posterior to 1749, seem unknown even to the Quarterly Reviewer; but it is possible that here Smollett's memory may have played him false, and that he confounded 1749 with the following year, when, as is well known, he visited that kingdom. The reference to his own share in furnishing the original for the story of "Roderick Random" is curious; nevertheless it can no longer be doubted that very many of the persons and scenes of that work, as well as of "Peregrine Pickle," were drawn, with more or less exaggeration, from his actual experience of men and manners. And the despondency with which he contemplates his shattered health and the prospect of finding a grave in a foreign land explains completely the governing motives that produced, in the concluding pages of the history of the reign of George II., so calm and impartial a testimony to the various worth of his literary compeers that it almost assumes the tone of the voice of posterity. This is the suggestion of the article in the "Quarterly Review," and the language of the letter confirms it. Despairing of ever again returning to his accustomed avocations, and with a frame shattered by sickness and grief, he passes from the field of busy life to a distant land, where he thinks to leave his bones; but ere he bids a last farewell to his own soil, he passes in review the names of those with whom he has for years been on relations of amity or of ill-will, in his own profession, and, while he makes their respective merits, so far as in him lies, a part of the history of their country, he seems to breathe the parting formula of the gladiator of old,—Moriturus vos saluto.
In the first of the ensuing letters an amusing commentary will be found on Smollett's assertion, that his independent spirit would not stoop to solicit either place or pension. The papers of which it forms one appear to have been selected from the private correspondence of Dr. Smollett, and are preserved among the MSS. of the Library Company of Philadelphia, to which they were presented by Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who may have obtained them in Scotland. Like the letter to Mr. Smith, we are satisfied that these are authentic documents, and shall deal with them as such here. Lord Shelburne (better known by his after-acquired title of Marquis of Lansdowne) was the identical minister whom Pitt, twenty years later, so highly eulogized for "that capacity of conferring good offices on those he prefers," and for "his attention to the claims of merit," of which we could wish to know that Smollett had reaped some benefit. The place sought for was probably a consulate on the Mediterranean, which would have enabled our author to look forward with some assurance of faith to longer and easier years. The Duchess of Hamilton, to whom his Lordship writes, and by whom his letter seems to have been transmitted to its object, was apparently the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, dowager Duchess of Hamilton, but married, at the date of the letter, to the Duke of Argyle. Having an English peerage of Hamilton in her own right, it is probable she preferred to continue her former title.